Gordon's DYS-functional health patterns...

Nursing Students General Students

Published

Specializes in CNA in nursing homes- 4 years.

I am having a slight problem with filling out Gordon's functional health patterns. Perhaps this assignment is institution specific, but I am going to ask anyway...

My instructor wants a nursing process plan on Monday, and they give me the functional health patterns to fill out for my patient I had last week, yada yada yada, y'all know the drill.

My problem is that I could write several pages on each of the sections that we are to fill out, yet they give us this nice little box to put the info. in. I don't know how they can expect us to be thorough, when there are so many questions that just can't be answered in one or two words, and they all have to fit in the frickin' box!

Does anyone else have this problem???

Any suggestions???

Student Nurse Shannon

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

RE: the DYS-functional health patterns. . .:lol2: it sounds like what you are supposed to do is sort your various assessment data items into the 11 functional health patterns. This would be part of the preliminary work you need to do before actually settling upon nursing diagnoses. It is either part of Step #1, the assessment process, or part of Step #2, the nursing diagnosis part. I can't tell which it is because you haven't really described where this part fits into your written care plan.

Please tell me that you have an explanation or class notes somewhere of what each of Gordon's 11 functional patterns are. You'll need these in order to help you do this sorting. I don't know exactly what your instructors are wanting in these "nice little boxes" because I wasn't there the day you got the lecture on this stuff. However, I do know that when care planning you normally only consider the abnormal assessment items because those are the problems you are going to work out nursing interventions for. It would be unreasonable to have abnormal assessment items for all 11 functional health patterns.

The overall problem of care plans has always been the language of them. Reducing down the information you have into a couple of words is always a big challenge. That is why it's a good thing you've started this early so you can think on this.

If you can tell me if this sorting you are supposed to be doing is part of your overall assessment of the patient or only part of determining your nursing diagnoses for the patient, I will be better able to help you.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

here are two links that have assessment information when using gordon's 11 functional health patterns

Up Vote Up Vote ×

gordon's includes subjective and objective, right? can you help me with the objective part? It includes physical assessments but I'm confuse on some part of it. like is it okay to put it there or here...I've tried to study but I end up with my college instructor saying "...there's something wrong..."

thanks for the info :nurse:

Up Vote Up Vote ×
gordon's includes subjective and objective, right? can you help me with the objective part? It includes physical assessments but I'm confuse on some part of it. like is it okay to put it there or here...I've tried to study but I end up with my college instructor saying "...there's something wrong..."

thanks for the info :nurse:

We use Gordon's while we are filling out all of our careplan related materials. Yes, Gordon's is set up with subjective (what the patient tells you/or what you retrieve from their medical records, and objective which is what you observe while assessing your patient. You should have a Gordon's book like this to assist you with your finding a nursing diagnosis using your objective findings. Yes, I too have issues with small boxes and my large handwriting, LOL. My instructor says it is a lesson in "stick to it ness." LOL. I have actually begin to grow fond of Gordon's because it doesn't get much more laid out for you than this. They are still NANDA diagnoses but, at least the book I showed you above, is laid out for a nursing student to easily grasp the relevant observation information regarding your nursing diagnosis.

Regarding little box and needing to put tons of info in..... pick the most pertinent to your client and learn to write small.....sighs (I am still working on that last part)

GOOD LUCK

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Add a Comment